Himalayas inspired Emerich's disaster flick '2012'

The helmer of cult disaster flicks like 'Independence Day' and 'Day After Tomorrow' says that he chose to begin and end the cinematic catastrophe in India, because he wanted to depict a global catastrophe, not an American one.

The film starring John Cusack along with Indian actor Jimi Mistry depicts the end of the world foretold by an ancient Mayan calendar, but doomsday begins in Vijaywada, Andhra Pradesh and ends with the Himalayas going under water.

"The first image that came into my head for 2012, is the water coming over the mountains of the Himalayas. And I said 'If this is a global flood, there has to be the Himalayas flooded, and I have to show this' because it shows you what a global flood is," Emerich said in an interview.

The filmmaker who has a penchant for razing the world to ground, does so again with gusto in '2012' which has created a tidal wave at the worldwide box office, raking in USD 225 million in its opening weekend.

"I've lived here in Los Angeles for 20 years and like it but I must say, it's always fun to lay it to ruin," says Emerich.

While twisters razed the city in 'The Day After Tomorrow', it was aliens who did the honours in 'Independence Day', but Emerich says that there is a method to his madness.

"You want to be really in the heads of your characters and through them, and through their eyes, see what is happening. You will not just lean back and say "more destruction please". It's not about that," says Emerich.

And the 53-year-old director says that the inspiration to the film came from some real life events.

"I always say to Harald (co-writer), 'See all those guys demonstrating at the G8 Summit? What would happen if they're right and they are lying to us?' That kind of conspiracy was a starting point. When you type '2012' in Google, you get 240 million hits. That's a lot," said Emerich.

A TV sequel to the film is also in the works which depicts the resettling of earth in 2013 after the disaster.

"We have the luxury of having a producer on the film who is a big TV producer, Mark Gordon. We said to Mark, 'Why don't you do a TV show that picks up where the movie leaves off and call it 2013?'. I think it will focus on a group of people who survived... maybe they were on a piece of land that was spared, the possibilities are exciting," says Emerich.